The 25 Best RPGs of the Year, Ranked

The golden age of RPGs continues. From Baldur’s Gate 3 to Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring to Final Fantasy VII Remake, the 2020s have brought us some of the greatest role-playing games of all time. If we’re all waiting for the bubble to burst, well, we’re going to have to wait longer. 2025 offered up a healthy list of RPGs running a bountiful gamut from indie to AAA and everything in between. We may not have the big brand blockbusters like Final Fantasy or Dragon Age this year, but RPG fans have still feasted, making discoveries, revisiting classics in lovely new wrapping, and enjoying smash hits from unlikely sources.

As a team effort here at Inverse, we cooked up a big ol’ list of the 25 best RPGs of 2025, and believe it or not, there were still runners-up that are just as worth checking out. So take this ranking in good faith as one perspective of many, and we hope you’ll walk away with a new favorite or two you may have missed.

25. Super Robot Wars Y

This release is a remarkable milestone for Super Robot Wars, a series that has run for over three decades with virtually no presence outside of Asia. While the previous entry saw SRW’s North American debut exclusively on PC, Y brings the experience to consoles for a wider audience. Mobile Suit Gundam, classics like Getter Robo and Mazinger, and even new mecha fare like SSSS.Dynazenon are brought together in a massive crossover strategy RPG, fueled by some of the most impressive 2D animation work in video games. This series pays respect to history, gasses up a classic and enduring anime genre, and offers tons of systems to tinker with to boot.

24. Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster

Back when the gaming world was convinced turn-based RPGs were dead and buried, Square Enix and Team Asano (before it was officially Team Asano) proved everyone wrong with Bravely Default, a master class in old-school, Final Fantasy-style turn-based adventuring with the platonic ideal of Final Fantasy V’s job system. As a budget-friendly remaster for the Nintendo Switch 2’s launch library, Bravely Default not only showed up to remind us that it rules, it also came with some shockingly good minigames that use the Switch 2’s hardware gimmicks quite well.

23. Avowed

Obsidian Entertainment has been busy since its Microsoft acquisition, and it started 2025 off strong with Avowed, a Skyrim-like adventure RPG set in the Pillars of Eternity world. Colorful visuals bring life to a distinct and creative fantasy setting, and there are enough dialogue trees and character relationship-building for fans of this style of RPG to be happy for dozens and dozens of hours.

22. Monster Hunter Wilds

Monster Hunter used to be a niche that mostly saw success overseas, but Monster Hunter: World changed the global status of this intense, silly, and awe-inspiring adventure series to an absurd degree. Wilds is the long-awaited, full-force console follow-up, and the massive scale of this game is the prize for waiting so long. Few journeys make you feel so small and so powerful at the same time like Monster Hunter does, and Wilds finds new ways to evolve that sense of grandeur and wonder. It’s really, very big is what we’re getting at here.

21. Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma

Rune Factory, a fantasy-themed spinoff of Story of Seasons (formerly Harvest Moon), was struggling for a bit after the fan-favorite Rune Factory 4 back on the Nintendo 3DS. Guardians of Azuma is an experiment that paid off, turning the farming sim with combat and RPG elements into a bigger action-adventure experience, invoking the likes of Genshin Impact and (to a lesser extent) The Legend of Zelda to test the boundaries of what this idea can be. There’s a little something for everyone here, from action and romance to, of course, farming.

20. Lunar Remastered Collection

A classic in the truest sense, Lunar seemed like it would forever be trapped in the walls of history for anyone unwilling to dabble in emulation or jump down Wikipedia rabbit holes. This year the story changed as Game Arts brought Lunar back with a fully competent remaster, not only tinkering just enough under the hood to make the ride smooth, but showing us how timeless elements we tend to take for granted in RPGs can be when executed with heart and skill. Come for the Disney-like musical numbers, stay for the intense boss fights and trope-defying storytelling.

19. Stray Children

Onion Games is responsible for Moon, an “anti-RPG” that, like Off (more on that later), is cited as a major inspiration for Undertale. Stray Children is a new RPG from that team that, in turn, feels inspired by Undertale. In this dreamlike adventure, a young boy (who kind of looks like a dog) is sucked into a video game his father made, and as that world dissolves around him, he wakes up in an even stranger world, full of grotesque monsters who are more or less metaphors for the confusing problems adults deal with in the real world. You can fight these monsters endlessly but can only truly pacify them by finding out how to relate to them, freeing their souls from torment by simply talking it out. That’s the kind of power kids can have, you know.

18. Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land

Gust’s Atelier series has been around for decades, but it wasn’t until the recent Ryza trilogy that this series — a cozy RPG about attractive people going on silly adventures and combining items to create miracles of healing and damage — really broke containment. Yumia is, much like other games this year on this list, all about pushing boundaries in scope and scale. The core of combining ingredients and hitting monsters with a stick is still intact, but between expanding the environments to open-world landscapes and outfitting hero Yumia with bizarre magic juice that fuels rocket-boosted high heels, a magic staff that doubles as a rifle, and a… motorcycle, there’s a lot going on with this game and then some. In a gaming world that seems increasingly interested in “cozy” games and the “everygame,” Atelier Yumia tries its hardest to be both.

17. Fantasy Life I: The Girl Who Steals Time

Speaking of the everygame, here’s another big, adorable adventure filled to bursting with different kinds of activities and boundless freedom to try any or all of them at your own pace. Fantasy Life was a niche hit on the Nintendo 3DS, and The Girl Who Steals Time is that experience multiplied, running on all cylinders, and with enough gas in the tank to become one of the most played games on the Steam Deck. And that’s exactly what Fantasy Life is, the perfect companion for a favored handheld device, something you can play at your leisure no matter how much bandwidth your attention span has left. You can pick whatever job fits your fancy, from cooking to combat, and grind to your heart’s content. There’s always something to do, plus ways to mix up your routine, and a strong, Saturday-morning-cartoon-style story holds it all up.

16. Hades II

The impact Hades had on RPGs, roguelikes, and developer Supergiant Games itself cannot be understated. And that’s why Hades II is here, the first time Supergiant has gone to the trouble of making a sequel. It’s much bigger in scale and scope with new ways to interact with this take on Greek mythology, a more complicated story, and new twists on the core gameplay established the first time around. There are arguments to be had on whether or not the sequel hits the same highs as the original, but either way, there’s no denying the magnitude of Hades as a new series.

15. Off

Mortis Ghost’s Off came from a time before indie games were commercialized, when you came across games like this, Cave Story, and Yume Nikki to name a few as mysterious zip files traded around message boards, when the superstar creators of today were finding their inspirations. You play as The Batter, an entity on a mission to purify the world, in a sinister, surreal adventure originally made with RPG Maker. Fangamer’s release not only gives Off a proper release for the first time, but it also comes with new features, revamped combat, and a new soundtrack that includes Undertale creator Toby Fox, who has himself cited Off as a major inspiration so many years ago.

14. Crescent Tower

In 2024, a game called Dungeon Antiqua came out of nowhere, answering a question nobody had asked: What if Wizardry and Final Fantasy came together? The result was compelling, mixing the style of a Famicom Final Fantasy with the dangerous, “savor the risk” mentality of Wizardry without the unfriendly first-person view. This year, Crescent Tower showed up from developer Curry Croquette, presenting a similar premise but leaning even harder into it. There’s more game, more customization, more dungeons, more classes, more story, and even some actual characters in the mix. It’s an unforgiving crawl, with nasty traps, limited visibility, monsters that can de-level your party, and more. But at the same time, the rewards for hunkering down and doing your best are incredible, in and outside of the game itself. Crescent Tower is old-school RPG gaming at its finest, with a flavorful twist.

13. Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake

These two remakes are transformative works, taking classic Famicom RPGs and expanding them in every way conceivable, from retrofitting in modern Dragon Quest mechanics and features to expanding the stories, not only in terms of volume but also in how the original “Erdrick Trilogy” operates as a trilogy. Dragon Quest 2 especially benefits from this treatment, evolving from a somewhat rickety, grind-heavy dungeon-crawler to a more grand experience with a hearty injection of what’s come to be a series trademark of anthological storytelling.

12. Artis Impact

If you’ve ever wondered about how far RPG Maker has come over the years as a legitimate game development tool, look no further than 2025’s Artis Impact, an ambitious and emotionally complex title from a solo developer that effectively combines comedy, sci-fi, drama, and fast food. There’s an odd mix here, from a setting that visually invokes NieR Automata to game structure that feels like River City Ransom meets Yakuza, with simple turn-based combat the only thing that shows any seams. Even then, some astoundingly detailed animation permeates every second of Artis Impact, whether it’s the comical ability to run around in people’s homes flipping light switches and fiddling with appliances, to intense ability animations reminding us our goofball protagonists are capable heroes. Manga-style cutscenes add an additional layer of artistry to the mix, as if any more sauce was necessary.

11. Shujinkou

RPGs are narrative-heavy experiences that expect players to read lots and lots of text. You can’t miss anecdotes from longtime fans learning to read with the likes of Pokemon or Final Fantasy. With Shujinkou, the question becomes not one of learning to read, but learning a new language! This extensive, excellent Etrian Odyssey-inspired DRPG doubles as a Japanese language-learning tool, with modular settings that let you customize how dominant you want that part to be. Even if you don’t want to bother with the learning part, you still have a remarkable indie dungeon-crawler with a cool story and tons of depth. Combat itself is driven by using your growing Japanese knowledge to hit enemies in their “ontological weakness,” which is perhaps the coolest RPG combat term ever.

10. House of Necrosis

What if the 1997 PlayStation survival horror classic Resident Evil was chopped up and tossed in a blender with Japanese developer Spike Chunsoft’s long-running roguelike series Mystery Dungeon? Warkus answers that bizarre question with House of Necrosis, which is literally that premise, snuggled up as close as possible to the legal limits. On one hand you have a horror-themed setting that looks like Resident Evil with the serial number filed off, and on the other, you have a turn-based RPG system that’s almost indistinguishable from Shiren the Wanderer. What puts House of Necrosis so high on the list is, simply, how well it works. This mash-up is like peanut butter and chocolate, a textbook example of execution on every level.

9. Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector

The first Citizen Sleeper was an instant critical darling, a tragic cyberpunk story about a person fighting to wrest control of their body back from a faceless corporate entity. The sequel is more broad but just as devastatingly personal, exploring themes like found family and the impact labor has on bodies and minds. Gameplay mixes survival elements with tabletop dice rolls, emulating how wrong simple tasks can go seemingly by chance, and how even a good roll’s effects don't last long. This can be a tough ride depending on your relationship and history with work and your own body, but also one that’s ultimately as cathartic and validating as it is challenging.

8. Look Outside

Another RPG Maker banger, Look Outside is a tremendous slice of cosmic horror set in a doomed apartment building, in which something is said to be happening in 15 days, and whatever it is, don’t you dare look outside until then. But admit it: You kind of want to, don’t you? Survival horror meets morbid curiosity, when the threat of danger only amplifies the rush of risking everything just to see the horrors for yourself. This game understands why the horror movie character opens the door they obviously shouldn’t. It thinks you’re that person, too. Maybe it knows. The things that happen to people in this building are horrid, but at the same time, the creativity behind conceiving and portraying these horrors is inspiring. Look Outside is part funhouse, part unthinkable tragedy, part “oh, good Lord, what is that,” with a little bit of EarthBound sprinkled on top for funsies.

7. Digimon Story: Time Stranger

If this pick surprises you, consider that an opportunity to experience something special. Ten years ago, a janky, low-budget Digimon RPG for weirdos became a cult classic on the PS Vita. A sequel to Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth seemed unlikely, but it finally happened, and it’s back with a vengeance (budget, production values). There are layers to this series that take it far beyond just being based on a popular IP, which is in fact the least important piece. There’s a striking energy to Time Stranger, an oddness that makes it stand out among its peers and a confidence of vision that backs it up. It tackles serious topics despite looking like an anime for children, and it has some of the deepest, most satisfying to grind in systems you’ll ever find in a game about collecting monsters. You don’t have to know a single thing about Digimon to get your world rocked by Time Stranger; give it a shot.

6. Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition

A whole decade after flying rather low under the radar on the Wii U, Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition gave one of the most thrilling open-world sci-fi epics in gaming its proper due. The massive scope of this game’s world, made all the more impressive by improvements you can see and feel despite the Nintendo Switch’s limited hardware muscle, is justified by an emphasis both on exploration and on rewarding players for their tenacity with optional content that doesn’t feel optional. Additional story content and other quality of life improvements round out a “definitive Definitive Edition” that our reviewer Hayes Madsen said is “a game with a wholly unique vision, and only gets better the more time you put into it.”

5. The Outer Worlds 2

Obsidian Entertainment’s sequel to its Fallout-inspired RPG is bigger in almost every way. The story is grander in scale, there are more choices you can make in both dialogue and the gameplay itself, and your options have been vastly expanded, from character creation to aligning yourself with different factions and choosing your companions. As Hayes wrote in his review, “[Outer Worlds 2] utterly revels in the absurdity of its satire on capitalism, government, authoritarianism, and individuality — even if it takes a bit longer to get situated than the first game.”

4. Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter

Speaking of remakes, this one’s a doozy. Falcom has spent the last decade or so producing one of the most intricate stories in interactive fiction, blasting itself into mainstream awareness (and bringing along its other properties like Ys by association). Trails in the Sky is where it all started, but it has struggled to be a viable starting point due to its archaic PC RPG aesthetic. 1st Chapter is a largely faithful remake, but the impact of its technological leaps are shocking. A huge adventure known for its brilliant writing now has production value to match, with emotive, lively characters, a world that looks and feels alive, and combat that’s punched up and theatrical to modern standards. It’s a simple approach, but one that effectively elevates the material, which is admittedly such a strong foundation that it’s practically cheating.

3. Final Fantasy Tactics - The Ivalice Chronicles

Final Fantasy Tactics is widely considered one of the best-written stories in RPG history, and Square Enix’s elaborate remaster gives more players an approachable way to see for themselves. The story’s focus on the inequality and suffering brought about by institutional wealth and the sacrifice needed to do something about it has only grown more relevant with time. A new localization and pitch-perfect vocal performances elevate the story, and new efforts to rebalance the tactical gameplay sand off some rough edges. A mostly intact original version is also included for the sake of historical context.

2. The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy

Too Kyo Games’ The Hundred Line is the most ambitious game on this list, and perhaps one of the most ambitious games of its ilk ever made. This unhinged combination of visual novel and strategy RPG is the long-awaited team effort of Danganronpa creator Kazutaka Kodaka and Zero Escape creator Kotaro Uchikoshi, and if you know what those series are, you know exactly what that means. Not only is the core story a riot, there are dozens (upon dozens) of alternative routes, with branches that take things in different directions (and genres) entirely, culminating in a migraine-inducing web of storytelling madness that has to be seen to believe.

1. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Clair Obscur is fascinating, a debut work from a new developer that’s being heralded as the second coming of Final Fantasy at a time when that legendary brand is arguably in an identity-crisis era. This game is impressive on every front: a testament to the power of Unreal Engine 5 (warts and all) with the visual fidelity to match a AAA blockbuster; a dark, adult story about how challenging it can be to let go of grief, navigating relationships between flawed people, and how humans can adapt and find meaning in survival; a turn-based combat system that uses active timing elements and figured out a way to be so sexy it inspired unending discourse online; and Ben Starr. Expedition 33 has everything a RPG sicko could ask for, and serves it in a Hollywood style many thought left the genre behind.